Posted 7/02/2007 07:49:00 PM by Douglas

The Space Shuttle Atlantis makes a surprise stop at Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport. Of course, it was a big deal. NASA Spokes-Homo Sapien, brign it home for us:

"The runway was within our limits. There aren't very many. There's actually 19 designated landing places across the U.S. for us," she said. "We wouldn't typically come to a commercial airport. ... We needed a place to land, so we ended up here."

If that doesn't sum up your visit to Amarillo, I don't know what does. "We were out of gas, so we ended up here."

I wonder if the Amarillo Chamber of Commerce has thought about that one?

Labels: STS-117

Posted 7/01/2007 05:26:00 PM by Douglas

On the road:

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Posted 6/23/2007 10:51:00 AM by Douglas

Welcome home. To California, anyway.

Work was continuing on the station computers, but Gerstenmaier said the computer crash may have taught NASA much about how electronics will perform on the space station-size ships the agency hopes to one day send to Mars.

"This mission is really a piece of exploration, if you think about it," he said. "We may have learned something here on this flight with the computer malfunction that could pay huge benefits to us in the future."

We can all hope.

Labels: STS-117

Posted 6/14/2007 05:36:00 PM by Douglas

Palatine, Illinois, we have a problem.

PALATINE, Ill. - An elementary school science teacher in this Chicago suburb doesn't have to turn on the news for an update on NASA's space mission. She just turns on her video baby monitor.

Since Sunday, one of the two channels on Natalie Meilinger's baby monitor has been picking up black-and-white video from inside the space shuttle Atlantis. The other still lets her keep an eye on her baby.

"Whoever has a baby monitor knows what you'll usually see," Meilinger said. "No one would ever expect this."

Live video of the mission is available on NASA's Web site, so it's possible the monitor is picking up a signal from somewhere.

"It's not coming straight from the shuttle," NASA spokeswoman Brandi Dean said. "People here think this is very interesting and you don't hear of it often — if at all."

Well, it's not coming from the ISS. Nothing is working on the ISS.

Summer Infant, the monitor's manufacturer, is investigating what could be causing the transmission, communications director Cindy Barlow said. She said she's never heard of anything similar happening.

"Not even close," she said. "Gotta love technology."

Kinda funny, really, that the baby monitor is picking this up while there's so many malfunctions onboard.

Technology indeed.

Labels: STS-117

Posted 6/09/2007 11:00:00 PM by Douglas

There a tear, in the blanket, dear NASA, dear NASA.

NASA experts analyzed a small gap in the fabric heat-shielding of shuttle Atlantis' tail section Saturday as the seven astronauts aboard raced toward a rendezvous with the international space station.

The 4-inch gap in fabric that stretches across one of two rocket engines used for orbital maneuvers could be repaired in a spacewalk if necessary, the space agency said.

"If we decide this is a problem, we have a lot of capabilities to go address it," John Shannon, who chairs NASA's mission-management team, said at a news briefing.

Ok, that's all well and good and all, and quite frankly, problems at the Mission Control Center are a lot bigger deal when they happen during the week (as opposed to a Saturday), so I can understand why they're keeping it low key. My question is what is up with the Chronicle? They've probably fixed the side bar by the time anyone would read this (who am I kidding? NO ONE is reading this) so I made a screen-cap of it:

STS-115? That wasn't even the last shuttle flight. This is incredibly bad, even for a Hearst paper, but the home town of Mission Control can't do better than this? Come on, guys.

Labels: STS-117

Posted 6/08/2007 11:05:00 PM by Douglas

Finally!

After three months of hail damage, the penguin finally got airborne.

A patched-up Atlantis blasted off with seven astronauts Friday on the first space shuttle flight of 2007, putting NASA back on track after a run of bad luck and scandal that included a damaging hailstorm and a lurid love triangle.

Its big orange fuel tank covered with white blotches where the foam insulation had been repaired, the spaceship rose from its seaside launch pad with a roar and climbed into a clear and still-brightly lit sky at 7:38 p.m. EDT, setting a course for the international space station.

"See you in a couple weeks," Atlantis commander Rick Sturckow said shortly before lifting off.

Let's do this thing!

Labels: STS-117